John Cacioppo is professor at the University of Chicago and Director of the University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.

John Cacioppo is one of the most prominent scholars in the field of health psychology. He received many honors for his work, also many honors awarded to sociologists.

About his work:

Social species do not fare well when forced to live solitary lives. Humans, born to the longest period of abject dependency of any species and dependent on conspecifics across the lifespan to survive and prosper, do not fare well, either, whether they are living solitary lives, or whether they simply perceive they live in isolation.

The average person spends about 80% of waking hours in the company of others, and the time with others is preferred to the time spent alone. Social isolation, in contrast, is associated not only with lower subjective well-being but with broad based-morbidity and mortality. Perceived social isolation (i.e., loneliness) has also been associated with the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease, obesity, increased vascular resistance, elevated blood pressure, increased hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical activity, less salubrious sleep, diminished immunity, reduction in independent living, alcoholism, depressive symptomatology, suicidal ideation and behavior, and mortality in older adults.

Cacioppo’s research is focused on understanding the mechanisms that bring these effects of loneliness about and to study their neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic underpinnings in an approach he termed social neuroscience.